The magnetic disk drive recording industry continues to pursue advances in technology that will sustain enhancements in recording density in a cost-effective manner. Two approaches currently under investigation are bit patterned media recording (BPMR) and heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). An objective of these approaches is to overcome challenges posed by the super-paramagnetic limit that imposes a trade-off among three fundamentally competing recording parameters: media signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), writability, and thermal stability. BPMR and HAMR, however, require modifications to the media and heads, which significantly increase costs. Another technology, two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR), which uses conventional media and a new multiple-head configuration, relies on powerful signal processing in an attempt to achieve a theoretical limit of one bit-per-grain recording density.
As a practical near-term milestone, array-reader based magnetic recording (ARMR) has been proposed to increase areal density with an array-reader and associated signal processing.